The United States present policy with regard to Israel was severely criticized today by Summer Welles, former Under Secretary of State, and Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, in articles published in the New York Herald Tribune and New York Times, respectively.

Declaring that it was fortunate that the British and American attempt to stampede the United Nations into immediate adoption of the Bernadotte recommendations was blocked, Welles said that the government of Israel is wholly warranted in rejecting these recommendations and especially in opposing the proposal to take the Negev from Israel.

“Were this proposal to be accepted,” Welles writes, “a basic feature of the original partition resolution would be nullified, for Israel would then be unable to provide new homes for more than a handful of refugees. If a Palestine solution is to prove lasting, Israel must become a prosperous and a contended nation. With Israel deprived of the agricultural and mineral resources that the Negev affords, of its port on the Red Sea, and of its opportunities for resettlement and for expanding development, the new state cannot even be viable.”

STATE DEPARTMENT CHARGED WITH SUPPORTING BEVIN’S AMBITIONS

The former Under Secretary of State says that the Negev proposal represents the latest in the long series of attempts made by British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, with the support of the State Department and National Security Council in Washington, to restore British hegemony over the Near East.

“Under the guidance of military influences now primarily responsible for the American foreign policy, the United States supports Mr. Bevin in his insistence that Israel’s boundaries be revised not for the sake of economic stability, not for the sake of peace, but solely to suit Britain’s strategic plans,” Welles charges. He urges the smaller nations at the United Nations to balk the plot against Israel.

Dr. Wise, in a letter to the New York Times, points out that de jure recognition of Israel by the United States is long overdue. “It cannot be any longer delayed without playing fast and loose with the established principles and practices,” he declares. “The Israeli Government has established itself as a living organism. It is one of the parties to an international dispute which cannot be settled without its active participation. It is entitled to sit at the Council of Nations as a full-fledged member. Its right to do so has been fully recognized by fifteen countries. There can be no justification for any delay in giving effect to the realities of the situation.”

The power of the rabbinate in Israel is deplored by Arthur Koestler, well-known writer, in an article published today in the N.Y. Herald Tribune. He emphasize that “clericalism is one of the most serious problems to be solved” in Israel.

Citing a number of instances where religious traditions strongly influence present life in the Jewish State, Koestler predicts that this state of affaire “will last some five or at most 10 years” after which the young native generation “will carry out a vociferous but bloodless secular revolution and achieve a clean division between church and state.”